


cut from diamonds

by HearJessRoar



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Confessions, F/M, Kinda, Pre-Relationship, julie hangs out at lukes grave but like in a fun quirky way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:01:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27521194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HearJessRoar/pseuds/HearJessRoar
Summary: Julie just wants a little peace and quiet for the day. Luke makes that difficult.“No. Absolutely not.” he says, gesturing to his own headstone. “I amnotin there, you are weird.”
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 34
Kudos: 385
Collections: Kelly's Picks





	cut from diamonds

Julie has three bites of her sandwich left when the shadow falls across her lap.

She looks up, mouth full, and squints against the sun.

“Whatcha doin’, Jules?” Luke asks, head tilted and blinking at her with very wide eyes.

She swallows, well aware that she’s been caught.

“Hanging out with you?” she says, giving him a sheepish grin. Luke shakes his head, looking bemused. He drops down next to her in the grass and sits cross legged, his chin propped up on his laced fingers.

“No. Absolutely not.” he says, gesturing to his own headstone. “I am _not_ in there, you are weird.”

Julie takes the last bite of her sandwich and ignores him. Yes, okay, _maybe_ it’s a little bit weird to eat her lunch out here at her friendcrushbandmate’s grave, but _whatever._

“You’re having a picnic with my moldy corpse,” Luke says, his nose wrinkling. She levels him with a hard stare, cracks open her soda and takes a long, slow drink, never breaking her deadpan eye contact with him. “How’d you even find where I’m buried, anyway?”

“Asked your parents.”

And that surprises him, she knows. She hasn’t mentioned to any of the guys that she’s been keeping in contact with Emily, under the guise of having found more of Luke’s stuff she wanted to return. “I know where Reggie and Alex are, too,” she pauses, and looks at him seriously. “Don’t let Alex see his own grave. Just don’t.”

Luke winces. “That bad, huh?”

Julie nods. “He’s got the saddest little slab of metal for a headstone.”

It had broken her heart, the day she’d spent the whole afternoon hopping bus to bus with a bundle of tulips, only to end up at the scraggliest overgrown tree on a hill she’d ever seen, Alex’s name embossed onto cold, unfeeling bronze like he’d won third in death. 

There hadn’t been anywhere to set her flowers, and that had made her cry.

She tells him so, and Luke takes a deep, annoyed breath.

He stretches out, his legs crossing the threshold of where his casket would be, six feet below. “God, his parents _suck._ They were such massive tools when he came out,” he complains, leaning back on his palms.

“And!” Luke says a second later, sounding indignant as he sits up straight again. He jabs his thumb at his chest. “They blamed _me!_ Like, you walk in on me kissing your son _one time_ , and suddenly it’s all my fault he’s gay.”

Julie nearly snorts her soda up her nose.

Luke continues his tirade, complete with hand gestures. “It was _truth or dare_ , what was I gonna do, _not_ do the dare?”

She’s full on cackling at this point, her soda can held straight out in front of her so she doesn’t spill it with how hard she’s shaking with laughter. “Oh my god, _Luke-_ ”

He reaches out and takes the soda from her before she can drop it, and Julie clutches her stomach as she tries to catch her breath. 

“Not like I really needed the excuse,” he says, grinning at her. “You’ve seen Alex, who wouldn’t wanna kiss him? All that jittery nervousness is just so attractive.”

She has tears in the corners of her eyes, and she kicks her foot into his calf, trying to force him to stop making her laugh. He relents, shutting up, but the grin on his face is stuck fast.

Still hiccupping with helpless giggles, she lays down flat in the grass and takes deep breaths through her nose. The sun streams behind her closed eyelids, and she can hear Luke fidgeting next to her as she recovers from her laughing fit.

It's quiet for a long moment, broken only by birdsong in the distant trees.

"For real, Jules," Luke says, so softly that her heart _melts_ for him. "Why are you out here?"

Julie bites her lip. "Are you gonna laugh at me if I tell you?"

"At you? Never," he promises. "Cross my heart," she peeks one eye open at him and he really does cross his heart with her soda can.

"When my mom died, I found out that I like how peaceful cemeteries are. All quiet and still and you can talk or not talk and it’s all fine, the dead don’t care,” she says, absently twisting blades of grass around her fingers. “But it gets kinda lonely. So I thought I'd hang out with you."

His smile turns back to bemused. “But you could _actually_ hang out with me.”

“It’s different,” she says, stretching her arms up to tuck her hands behind her head. “I don’t know if I can really explain.”

“That’s okay. You don’t have to.” 

And he says it so sincerely that Julie really does wish she could put into words exactly why she decided to take the bus all the way out here today, to sit in the sun and listen to the birds and stare at his name engraved on a twenty five year old piece of granite that looks too polished and formal to be associated with him in any way.

But she can’t. 

So she doesn’t try, and takes the out that he’s given her.

When she rolls her head to the side to look at him, she catches him looking back at her with wide, tender eyes, and her heart gives a startled thu _thud_ in her chest. He doesn’t seem embarrassed to have been busted staring at her. 

In fact, he seems a million miles away.

Julie snaps her fingers and Luke blinks.

“Do you think if you stood on your grave, your soul would like, get sucked back down into your body?”

He makes a horrified face, immediately pulling his legs away from his burial plot like he’s been burned by it and scrambling backwards as fast as he can while still holding her soda aloft.

“You’re the meanest person I’ve ever met,” he grumbles. She sits up again, unable to fight the amused smile on her face as she reclaims her drink.

“You love me,” she says without thinking, mumbling into the can. She says it the same teasing way she would to Flynn or her brother, and it doesn’t occur to her that she’s said anything noteworthy until Luke says-

“Mhmm, think I’m getting there,”

Julie freezes, soda still at her lips, and turns to find that Luke has gone very pink across the nose.

And isn’t that kind of funny? By all rights he should have stopped being able to blush the second his blood stopped rushing in 1995 and when he stopped having a physical _body_ because his entire circulatory system definitely went into the ground with the rest of him. The afterlife should have at least granted him the courtesy of hiding his mortification at accidentally confessing that he might be in love with her. And yet.

She blinks at him.

“You good?”

“Yep,” he squeaks, looking like he never wants to be perceived in this reality ever again.

Julie turns away to let him recover himself, staring awkwardly down into the dark fizziness of her soda.

Welp. That happened.

And the thing is, she is _delighted_ by it. Luke is cute and funny and talented and he supports her and pushes her to be her best and she really really likes him, but-

Flynn is right, and Luke is very, _very_ dead.

Even though he’s become a whole lot more tangible lately, it doesn’t change the fact that he is in fact, deceased. She is literally sitting at his well-maintained graveside. That he claims not to be _in it_ is irrelevant.

Her life has gotten so very weird lately.

And instead of saying anything that would be _normal_ in this situation, (because there is _nothing_ normal about this situation) Julie blurts out, “Bet they buried you in sleeves.”

Luke, who has his head dropped down into his hands from embarrassment, gives an affronted squawk and comes up to face her. She gives him a gently teasing smile, hoping to get across that it's _okay._ That he's okay.

“Mean,” he mutters again. He reaches out towards her face and Julie stills. She’s almost certain her heart stops mid beat as his fingers graze her cheek and she can feel the calluses from his guitar strings and _oh no no no not like this not here at your grave-_

Luke tugs something out of her hair and holds it up to show her.

She has dead leaves in her curls, apparently.

Julie takes the last swig of her soda and sets the can down in the grass.

"Hey hey hey, don't be littering on my final resting place," Luke says, mock offense thick in his voice. He’s trying to move on from the moment, trying too hard to lighten the mood. Julie rolls her eyes, praying for the heat in her cheeks to recede faster, even though she knows he’s definitely noticed. Fair’s fair, she did see him turn scarlet not two minutes ago.

She likes that about him, that he tries so hard, with such enthusiasm and full-steam-ahead stubbornness no matter what he's focusing on.

He's ridiculous, and silly, and really smart even though he’s also kind of a dope.

And she likes him so much it makes her want to scream.

What she felt for Nick was nothing like this.

“Julie?”

“Yeah?”

Luke fidgets again, clasping his hands together and avoiding her gaze. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable-”

Julie snorts and lays out her hand to the side, palm up. An offering.

He takes it tentatively, like he’s afraid that she might change her mind, and Julie’s heart clenches for him. She laces their fingers together tightly, those old calluses on his fingertips brushing her knuckles as she thinks about how warm his hands are.

And she wants so badly to tell him how she feels, but there’s a headstone-sized block in her throat, preventing her from saying it. Because no matter how they roll the dice, getting involved with Luke is going to hurt her one day.

 _clocks move forward, but we don’t get older, no_ , like he had written so many years ago, unaware of exactly how applicable it would be for him and his future.

And Julie wants to be sure, so very very sure, that having loved and lost is going to be worth it in the end.

With him smiling down at their interwoven fingers like this, and scooting closer to her like she can’t see him out of the corner of her eye, Julie thinks, _maybe._

_Maybe this could be worth the heartbreak._

**Author's Note:**

> luke uses so much _emphasis_ when he talks, he's so fun to write. dramatique ghostie boi.
> 
> im half asleep and publishing this as is juke is newish territory for me
> 
> hope you liked it pls comment if you did and if u didn't well i tried
> 
> read my other jatp works i like to write them


End file.
